With Nucor adding capacity in Crawfordsville and Med-Mizer doubling up in Batesville, is our shop positioned to supply into the utility grid and VA-adjacent demand that's actually pulling capital into Indiana right now?

Both projects show real demand pulling behind them, utility pole steel on one side and VA medical bed subcontracting on the other. This is the week to check whether your current capabilities line up with either supply chain before the next funding round closes.

If BP's Whiting lockout and NIPSCO's separate lockout of roughly 1,700 USW workers point to a coordinated hardline bargaining approach from two of the region's largest employers, what does that mean for our own labor talks this year?

Expect unions and negotiators on both sides to study how these two lockouts resolve, and build extra time into your own bargaining calendar in case the same approach shows up at your table.

Do we have atmospheric monitoring and lockout/tagout procedures in place on any liquid nitrogen or cryogenic equipment, given that OSHA still has no dedicated standard for the exact failure mode behind the New Albany incident?

If your plant runs an IQF tunnel freezer or any bulk cryogenic storage, this is the week to confirm your monitoring and shutoff procedures, since a federal standard for this exact failure mode may not arrive soon.

Manufacturing News TEG Daily

October 14, 2026 · Montgomery · Ripley · Lake · Floyd · NIPSCO

Nucor's $105 Million Crawfordsville Expansion, Med-Mizer's Batesville Ramp, and BP's Whiting Lockout: Indiana Manufacturing News for October 14

Nucor's $105M Crawfordsville expansion, Med-Mizer's Batesville VA contract ramp, and BP's Whiting lockout: what Indiana manufacturers need to track this week.

Daniel BurkePublished every day

Nucor's $105 million Crawfordsville expansion adds a fifth major Indiana investment to its utility pole business, Med-Mizer is doubling headcount in Batesville to fill a new Veterans Affairs contract, and nearly 1,000 United Steelworkers members remain locked out of BP's refinery in Whiting with no new bargaining date on the calendar. Those three developments touch capital spending, labor relations, and the inland fuel supply Indiana plants depend on. A liquid nitrogen malfunction at a New Albany food plant also sent seven workers to the hospital this week, and Indiana's commerce secretary left for Japan to defend the state's hold on Toyota, Honda, and Subaru supply chains. Here is what each one means for your operation.

01Montgomery

Nucor's $105 Million Crawfordsville Expansion Faces a Three-Way Pole Market and an Unfinished County Vote

Nucor plans to expand its Towers & Structures facility in Crawfordsville by more than 120,000 square feet, a $105 million project on the 180-acre site adjacent to the company's Nucor Steel Indiana sheet mill. By the end of 2029, the initiative is projected to generate 100 jobs with average pay of $87,500 annually, and CEO Leon Topalian linked the expansion to utility investment in grid hardening, renewable interconnection, and EV charging infrastructure. Montgomery County has not yet finalized the local incentive package the expansion depends on.

Impact: Nucor is racing a named oligopoly: Valmont Industries ($130-150M/year in brownfield capacity through 2026), Arcosa's $180M Ameron Pole acquisition, and Sabre Industries, for a slice of utility CapEx projected to top $1 trillion through 2029, and Nucor's on-site steel supply (from the adjacent sheet mill) insulates it from the roughly 10% tariff exposure squeezing Valmont's Mexico-built structures. The announcement also came before Montgomery County finalized its incentive package and while five state utility commissions are actively challenging the $21.8 billion MISO Tranche 2.1 transmission plan that underlies the demand story Nucor is citing.
Watch: Montgomery County Council and Board of Commissioners' final vote on local incentives, and any update on the MISO Tranche 2.1 regulatory challenge that could affect order-book timing.
For the huddle: If a portion of the transmission buildout Nucor is counting on is tied up in a multi-state regulatory challenge, where else in our supply chain are we assuming grid-investment demand that isn't actually locked in yet?

SourcesNucor to Invest $105 Million in Indiana Utility Structures Facility (news.constructconnect.com)

Read the story →

02Ripley

Med-Mizer Doubles Its Batesville Workforce on a VA Contract It Doesn't Directly Hold

Med-Mizer is investing $9 million to upgrade its 40,000-square-foot plant at 80 Commerce Drive in Batesville, adding a second shift and up to 73 jobs at wages 134 percent of the Ripley County average. The expansion supports a new five-year, sole-source Department of Veterans Affairs contract to supply at-home hospital beds and support surfaces to veterans nationwide. "This investment marks a transformational chapter in our company's history," said Brian Roth, CEO of Med-Mizer, in the governor's office announcement on October 13.

Impact: The 'defense contractor' framing obscures a structural detail: USASpending.gov records show DiSorb Systems, not Med-Mizer, holds the actual VA contract, meaning Med-Mizer is a subcontractor or manufacturer-of-record inheriting DiSorb's contract risk with no direct cure-notice relationship to the VA. The award itself only opened up because incumbent Joerns Healthcare lost a bid protest over a technical specification dispute, a narrow procurement opening that could close just as fast in a future re-compete.
Watch: Whether the VA exercises all four option years of the five-year IDIQ, and any signal of a future re-compete or consolidation of the VA's in-home bed supply chain.
For the huddle: Given that our revenue flows through a prime contractor we don't control, what's our contingency if that intermediary relationship changes before we've fully ramped the new capacity?

SourcesMed-Mizer Investing $9 Million for Expansion in Batesville (eaglecountryonline.com)

Read the story →

03Lake

BP Locks Out Nearly 1,000 Steelworkers at Whiting as the Dispute Enters Its Sixth Day

BP has locked out close to 1,000 United Steelworkers members at its Whiting refinery, now in its sixth day with no new bargaining date scheduled. USW national oil bargaining chair Mike Smith said in an IndustriALL union release that BP declined to adopt the national pattern Marathon Petroleum already settled, a deal that included a 15 percent wage increase and a $2,500 bonus. USW District 7 director Mike Millsap said in the same release that the company is "gambling the community's safety on inexperienced replacement workers." BP reportedly hired Jordan Marcks, the labor relations director who ran the 2021-22 ExxonMobil Beaumont lockout, and has proposed outsourcing the refinery's environmental technician department and four maintenance craft lines to Turner Industries.

Impact: BP reportedly hired Jordan Marcks (the labor-relations director who ran the 2021-22 ExxonMobil Beaumont lockout) and proposed outsourcing the refinery's environmental technician department and four maintenance craft lines to Turner Industries, reframing this as a structural de-unionization push rather than a simple wage dispute. BP's break from the National Oil Bargaining Program pattern (Marathon settled at 15% wages plus a $2,500 bonus) runs in parallel with NIPSCO's lockout of roughly 1,700 USW utility workers in the same region, suggesting two major northern Indiana employers are coordinating an offensive labor strategy against the same union.
Watch: BP's April 23 shareholder meeting in London, where USW plans to mobilize, and whether other refiners (Chevron, Valero) face pattern-reopener pressure if BP's Whiting approach succeeds.
For the huddle: With a sustained throughput shortfall at one of the region's largest inland refineries, how exposed are we to regional fuel and feedstock price swings if this lockout drags on?

SourcesLocked Out BP Workers Picket Outside Indiana Refinery Amid Labor Contract Dispute (industriall-union.org)

Read the story →

04Floyd

Carbon Monoxide and Nitrogen Fog Send Seven to the Hospital at a New Albany Food Plant

A fault between a bulk liquid nitrogen tank and a tunnel freezer released gas on October 13 at the New Albany facility of Fearless Innovative Food Company (previously known as Kemper Foods), located at 525 Park East Boulevard. About 30 employees were on-site when roughly 15 firefighters responded, and at least seven workers were hospitalized. New Albany Fire Battalion Chief Ron Brown said crews found elevated carbon monoxide along with nitrogen fog and a brown residue on the floor.

Impact: A pure liquid-nitrogen release is colorless and odorless and leaves no residue, so the combination of elevated carbon monoxide and brown floor residue points to a combustion event or mechanical failure, not a standard asphyxiation incident, which could push any OSHA finding toward lockout/tagout (1910.147) or process-safety-management (1910.119) citations rather than a lower-tier gas-exposure violation. This also lands in an active regulatory gap: OSHA still has no national cryogenic-asphyxiant standard despite the Chemical Safety Board's December 2023 recommendation following the 2021 Foundation Food Group deaths in Georgia.
Watch: FSIS and OSHA's determination on the cause of the CO/residue anomaly and whether the facility's inspection status (Est. No. M21230+P21230) is affected.
For the huddle: Do our own liquid-nitrogen or cryogenic freezing lines have atmospheric monitoring in place, given that OSHA still has no dedicated standard for this exact failure mode?

SourcesAt least 7 hospitalized after carbon monoxide found, possible nitrogen leak at New Albany food plant (wdrbwave.com)

Read the story →

05Statewide

Commerce Secretary Goodrich Leads the First Braun-Era Trade Trip to Japan

Indiana Secretary of Commerce Chuck Goodrich left this week for Tokyo and Nagoya to meet with executives from Subaru, Toyota, and Honda, all three of which run large assembly plants in Indiana, along with Toyota's Tier 1 suppliers Aisin Corp, Toyota Industries Corp, and Toyota Tsusho, and the Japanese facilities of Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly. It is the first foreign trade mission of Governor Mike Braun's administration; predecessor Eric Holcomb made 27 such trips over eight years. The roughly $25,000 trip is funded mostly by the Indiana Economic Development Foundation.

Impact: The headline OEM meetings mask where new-facility siting decisions actually originate: Toyota's Princeton plant is absorbing a $200 million Grand Highlander capacity expansion as part of a $10 billion five-year U.S. commitment, and Honda's Greensburg plant is absorbing all Accord production redirected from Ohio: both retention outcomes depend on sustained relationship capital at exactly the Tier 1 supplier level (Aisin, Toyota Tsusho) Goodrich is visiting, while Ohio and Kentucky actively court the same Japanese OEM investment dollars. Gaylor Electric's 97% revenue growth since FY2023, fueled partly by the same data-center and advanced-manufacturing boom the trip is meant to accelerate, raises the financial stakes on Goodrich's dual IEDC/Gaylor role.
Watch: Any follow-on investment announcement tied to Toyota's Gibson County retool or Honda's Greensburg Accord consolidation in the weeks after the trip, plus further legislative scrutiny of Goodrich's Gaylor/IEDC conflict-of-interest question.
For the huddle: Are we positioned to pick up Tier 1 supplier relationships (not just OEM headline deals) being cultivated in Nagoya this week, and does our own IEDC incentive exposure need a second look given the Goodrich conflict-of-interest debate?

SourcesIndiana’s commerce secretary making overseas trip this week (wfyi.org)

Read the story →

Questions for your morning huddle

This brief